ATLANTA — The Hawks know that at this point of the season, every game is important. They’ve lost their first two games of their Eastern Conference playoffs first-round series against the Celtics. So, they know that Friday’s Game 3 carries serious implications.
“It’s obviously, you know, the most important game; as you said they’re all important,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said at practice Thursday. “I think the pressure, I don’t want to feel pressure as much as I want to feel enthusiasm, aggression, you know determinedness, if that’s a word, determinedness. I want to be determined.”
Despite the loss in Game 2, the Hawks took a step in the right direction with how they started. They led 22-11 after the first almost seven minutes, but couldn’t sustain it. So, the team will try to take the good things they did at the end of Game 1 and combine it with their good start to Game 2 and string together a full 48 minutes of better basketball.
“Exactly how those first five, six minutes went, moving the ball, getting stops, I think we just got to sustain that throughout 48 minutes,” Hawks forward Jalen Johnson said. “So whether it’s in spurts, we just got to have more possessions like that than them. So if we’re able to do that, I think we’ll take care of business.”
The Celtics, of course, will continue to throw the kitchen sink at the Hawks in the next two games. Their versatility and depth gave the Hawks plenty of trouble. Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Derrick White combined for 78 of the Celtics’ 231 points.
Plus, the Hawks struggled against the Celtics’ backdoor cuts and driving layups to the basket, particularly when they could find Robert Williams, who scored 20 points between the two games.
“You can’t abandon who you are,” Snyder said. “But within that construct, I think our guys have an opportunity to know, to recognize what’s next. Because those are different levers or different things. If someone’s blitzing, switching one through five, all the adjustments that people make, that’s one that you have to recognize. And obviously, we’re aware of it.”
With the Hawks back at State Farm Arena on Friday and Sunday, they look to take advantage of playing in front of a home crowd. Following Tuesday’s game in Boston, Hawks guard Dejounte Murray spoke of how excited he was to play postseason basketball in front of his home fans.
He reiterated the sentiment after Thursday’s practice.
“I mean, it should help a lot,” he said. “We was able to get home, see our families, you know, that’s No. 1, you know, have some motivation to have a chip on your shoulder. You know, we down 2-0. It ain’t the end of the world. It’s not a game, it’s a series. So we get to go out and play, in front of our fans. You know, that should be a push for us. That should be motivation that chip on our shoulder.”
Snyder agreed.
“It’s helpful, you know. It’s really something you always want to win on the road,” he said. “But I think, particularly with our fan base, our fans, for the short time that I’ve been here, they’ve just been terrific and behind us in every way, when we’ve played well. When we haven’t, they picked us up. Hopefully, we’ll give them something to (cheer for). We might not play well the whole game, but we’ll play well I think a lot more than I think we have thus far.”
